


A Time for Peace

by DawningStar



Category: Belgariad/Malloreon Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawningStar/pseuds/DawningStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Polgara had left the warm bed very suddenly the morning after the Choice at Kell, with a firm silent suggestion that Durnik should stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Time for Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TanyaReed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TanyaReed/gifts).



A long coil of fishing line lay neatly fastened in the top of the heavy canvas bag. 

That shouldn’t really have caught Durnik by surprise. He had packed it there himself, to have it right to hand when there was time to spare for fishing. 

Lots of time now, he supposed, by their great good luck. The ship’s cook might appreciate a little fresh food to add to the salty meals. Most things that needed to be done shipboard had more qualified hands than his to do them. Attempting to fish would be useful entertainment today. Better than standing here doing nothing, as he had been for much too long a moment. 

Except that the heavier sea lines were in Toth’s bags along with most of the bait they’d kept. 

Durnik breathed out slowly and forced himself to inhale again, easing the grip of the pressure in his chest. He moved the coil to one side with particular care, found the soft squares of linen cloth underneath, and tied the bag securely shut. Only yesterday that Toth had died as he lived, defending his friends and the world. He knew the sharp pangs of loss would pain him less often with time. The knowledge didn’t help. 

The cup of water presented less trouble. He focused, commanded it, “Warm,” and it obligingly began to send up tiny tendrils of steam. 

Providing an actual bath on board ship would take a great deal of preparation even if Durnik helped things along by cheating at every step. Polgara always felt better when she had a chance to wash up a little, though. 

She had left the warm bed very suddenly that morning, with a firm silent suggestion that he should stay. He knew better than to ignore that. Whatever was going on, she didn’t want him hovering right now. Which usually meant she’d be back as soon as she’d worked through what was bothering her. 

The folded linen rested in a careful perch on the rim of the cup, only a little troubled by the gentle rocking of waves. The _Seabird_ was far larger than any of the quick vessels they’d journeyed on during the quest, and the weather calm. He didn’t even have to order the cup to keep its place on the shelf. 

There: Pol’s footsteps, light on the wooden deck. Durnik smiled at the familiar sound. 

Slower than his wife’s usual brisk mood, the compartment door slid open. Polgara stepped in, elegant as always, her shipboard sleeping robes no less graceful on her than any courtly gown. They didn’t inspire too much of the lingering sense of mismatch when he looked at himself, either. 

He couldn’t quite interpret the contemplative, wondering lines in her expression. If she wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, he could wait. Durnik nodded to the cup of warm water. 

Polgara looked at it, made a peculiar choked noise, and lifted a loose fist to her mouth. Her eyes glittered, and she blinked twice. 

This was a completely unexpected reaction. Durnik stepped forward to grasp her elbow in concern. Hardly the first time he’d gotten her a little water, and she’d never responded like that in his memory. Whatever this was seemed to be affecting her more than he’d thought. “What’s wrong?” 

She shook her head slowly, turned a smile oddly both troubled and luminous toward him. “Nothing at all is wrong, Durnik.” More words seemed to hover for a moment in her mouth before she found them lacking somehow, shook her head again, and added, “Thank you.” 

At least the routine of washing up seemed to calm her. Polgara’s soap was in her private bag beside the shelf, which Durnik by long habit never opened, but that was close enough for the purpose anyway. 

It puzzled him why she felt the need to rinse her mouth so thoroughly and add a dried leaf of mint from her medicinal stores, as cleaning teeth was normally a separate part of the day’s routine. But he sat down on the edge of the bed and refrained from asking until Polgara finished, cleared her throat, and came to sit beside him, a warm weight. Since she didn’t seem to object, he raised an arm to settle snug around her. 

The sigh of contentment as she leaned into him made Durnik smile. At the edge of his senses, Durnik could hear the faintest whisper of Polgara’s will moving. Not reaching out, not calling or moving anything at all, but...gentle, watching. He waited. 

Not too much later, Polgara came to some silent conclusion. Her hand crept into his as she inhaled slowly, shoulders straightening from their pensive curl. Her head turned to meet his gaze, blue eyes catching him as always in their depths. “Durnik, I’m pregnant.” 

Direct, calm, practical, as though this wasn’t life-altering news at all. It was the tone with which she usually spoke of such matters. The sentence in whole made the impact quite different. 

“Congratulations,” Durnik managed to respond faintly, once he had returned a little air to his lungs, because that was what one said to such news. 

That did explain the rinsing. He wondered what kind of foods would work best to ease nausea in the mornings--tastes seemed to differ, by what he’d heard on Faldor’s farm so long ago now. A crisp bread, or a little dried meat...

Pol was going to have a baby. They were going to have a baby. 

The width of his smile would probably hurt once he stopped to think about it. Polgara’s grew brighter even as he watched. 

He’d known before their marriage some fifteen years ago that Polgara wasn’t sure their own children would ever be a possibility, not of their own blood. She was several thousand years old, though it dizzied him to think too much about it, and his life expectancy had joined hers at “indefinite”. Not enough examples to judge by, when they were so very far off the normal timeline; no way to know when or if it would happen. But there had been little Errand to think of, and Durnik hadn’t minded the lack at all. One more peculiarity of his new peculiar family, all of whom he loved dearly. 

Polgara was a sorceress and a physician and couldn’t possibly be mistaken about anything this important. Nevertheless, Durnik stammered just a little, stumbling over the concept and the implications. “That’s--we’re...This seems...sudden.” 

If she’d known yesterday, going into the final battle and the Choice, she would have told him then. No hint of morning sickness then, though nerves would have made it worse. She’d told him long ago that it took some weeks into a woman’s childbearing for morning sickness to appear. Pol knew herself and the signs of pregnancy too well to miss them. 

She nodded a wry agreement. “Help out the Gods and the Necessity of the Universe, get strange rewards and suspiciously convenient timing,” she said. Her smile was still a little bemused, but not at all unhappy, Durnik was glad to see. “I just learned Ce’Nedra is expecting, too.” 

It was one thing to think about a pet snake’s reproduction being delayed until her task was completed, but quite another to apply the same reasoning to his wife and the Rivan Queen. Durnik thought he might be offended on their behalf if he weren’t quite so overwhelmingly delighted. “I suppose keeping other children safe while we were searching for Geran would have made things more difficult,” he had to admit, grudgingly. 

Since it all seemed to be settled for now, Durnik made a silent note to discuss this for future reference with Eriond, who’d been raised to be more polite, and put the question aside. “If there’s anything at all you want, I can get it,” he promised instead. “Almonds, or...fresh bread?” 

His reward was a low velvety chuckle. “Durnik, if I want something that badly, I can just get it myself.” Her fingertips and thumb came together as though pulling the hypothetical item from thin air. 

“I know, Pol,” he acknowledged at once. “I just thought you might have more fun letting someone else do that for you.” 

The look of amused tolerance she leveled at him made Durnik grin even wider. He leaned in to approve thoroughly of her mint-flavored lips. 

Toth would have been delighted for this news, for all of them. The world was going on as it should, which Toth had thought well worth his own sacrifice. While that didn't much help the grief either, it did help make room for the proper deep joy. 

After a while curiosity got the best of Durnik. “Can you feel the baby?” Suspicious timing or not, he knew it was too early in the process for any movement the usual way. Polgara’s practiced will rarely had to accept such limits. 

Her fingers tightened on his hand, moving both to rest over the present home of a tiny new life. “Only just.” 

That troubled look tugging at her eyes was back. Since she didn't seem at all bothered by the thought of meddling powers, long more accustomed to it than Durnik, the cause escaped him. She’d said nothing was wrong. He trusted therefore that their baby looked healthy for this early stage. But he didn’t want Pol to fret alone over any worry, however trivial, if he could help it. 

He lifted his less occupied hand to touch the white lock in her hair, following it back to her ear. “Will you tell me what you’re thinking?” 

A quiet sigh, tinged with the sharp scent of mint. Polgara looked down, her hand tensing protectively. 

It was a moment before she spoke. “When I was just a little older than this, mother thought she had better give us a head start in learning everything we’d need to know.” 

Durnik returned his hand to her shoulder in order to offer a squeeze of comfort, listening intently. It was rare Pol said much about her youth, even to him. Long ago, but close in memory, especially her beloved short-lived twin sister. Hard to either put any of it in the past or speak of it without awkward results when her parents were still such an important part of her life. 

He wasn’t quite used to how strange his in-laws could be, but he tried to understand them. “Before you were born?” he asked, calmly, to clarify. 

Polgara nodded. Her reminiscent smile held an old sorrow that always meant she was thinking of Beldaran. “She knew how important we would be to the world. The kind of challenges we’d face.” 

That chain of thought was easy to follow. “You’re wondering what the world has in store next.” The battles Polgara and her family had been fighting and preparing for across all these centuries were over, and peace seemed very probable. Particularly accounting for Eriond’s influence. Even so, there would be no lack of future challenges for any child of theirs. The world was a complicated place to live. 

“What harm waiting might cause,” Pol agreed. “And what the costs will be if I wake our own as early. Or at all.” The creases of regret deepened a little as her gaze went distant. “I could feel mother’s anger, but I was too young to understand it. My father and I got off to a very poor start. Unavoidable, some of it, but...that put Beldaran between us. She loved Father, and I didn't want her to. I wasted so much time trying to force her to choose.” 

She leaned into his side. Durnik tightened his gentle grasp. “Your mother did the best she could for you. But it’s okay if the best thing for our child isn’t quite the same. The world is different. You’re different. I’m certainly not much like your father.” 

Polgara snorted a half-stifled laugh. “Nothing like.” 

Encouraged, Durnik continued. “I don’t know whether our child needs that kind of early preparation or not, but I _do_ want to be a part of this. All the way. Whatever that involves. Teaching them like that, or teaching them the usual way, or just being with you. Anything I can do.” 

Her head rested comfortably in the curve of his neck, and he could feel the tension fade with her slow release of breath. Silence, deep and warm, and her mind brushed against his. _“Mother couldn’t afford to wait...but I can. And I will.”_

Durnik had to admit relief. Anger didn’t seem like much risk to their child right now, but no telling if his sharp grief would have been just as much cause for regret someday, however he tried to hide it. That wouldn’t fade quickly, even with the new joys alongside. 

Another moment of consideration before Polgara settled more snugly against him, closer in his mind and in his arms. _“I think I can show you, if you want to feel.”_

Wordless delight was evidently more than enough answer. Pol hummed a soft laugh and drew him into careful coordination, to watch her work without disrupting her concentration, the same way she’d taught him so many things. Awareness delicately brushing across her own being, drawing him along. Durnik scarcely breathed for fear of setting Pol any fraction off balance. 

There was no third presence to touch, not really. Not yet. Only an impossibly precious spark of not-quite-Pol, not-quite-him. If not for Polgara’s sure and practiced knowledge, invisible. 

_“Shh,”_ Polgara whispered. Not spoken words, but a gentle net of safety weaving round that spark, mind and will in perfect concert to protect from all threats known or unknown. _“You’ll have your turn at everything, and we’ll teach you all we can. But not now. We’re here to defend you. No need to wake.”_

Time later for teaching, training, playing, all the things that Durnik looked forward to with a longing excitement. For stories of adventure and sacrifice and friendship in unexpected places, of Toth's brave loyalty, and the Choice between the world's opposing destinies. That time would come soon enough. Not too soon. Their little one deserved the best _they_ could give, and now was a time for peace. 

Very carefully, he offered his own strength to the cause, and felt Polgara humor him by weaving it in. 

_“We love you,”_ Durnik added his own silent benediction. _“Sleep well.”_


End file.
